STORIES OF AGENCY: DO GRADUATE STUDENTS PERCEIVE THEMSELVES AS PART OF THE MATHEMATICAL COMMUNITY?

Abstract

Graduate student teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for the instruction of undergraduate students in critical introductory courses, but are not yet in the position of professors. Given their unique status, we ask if there are differences in how graduate students and professors express their agency when speaking about their responsibilities and how graduate students position themselves as members of the community of mathematicians. We use tools from systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1994) to analyze 16 interviews with graduate students and professors from research I universities. We found important differences in how graduate students and professors perceive their agency, and agency varies according to whether it concerns disciplinary or institutional responsibilities. Future research can investigate how to create more opportunities for developing the agency of GTAs in institutional decisions.